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November was a busy month for me, and so I’ve fallen behind here. I should tell you why it was so busy! I have been writing and writing, mostly on projects I can’t tell you about till I hear back from people…that’s mostly it. I can tell you this much: I wrote a time travel story with no time travel in it, a first contact story with no contact in it, and a supervillain story with at least one too many villains in it. Also I have been working my way towards total knee replacement, which I now have a date for: not till February, but there’s a lot to do in preparation (I have to get tough!).

So what do I have to catch up on? Two publications, a guest blog, and a future publication (that I can talk about).

The guest blog is here at my friend Heather Rose Jones’ livejournal. She’s the author of, among other things, a series of fantasy novels set in Alpennia, a fictional European-like country in the eraly modern era (that is, not medieval). They’re really good, featuring smart, independent, largely lesbian, women who make sense in their own contexts, and solid, interesting world-building. And coincidentally, my blog is about world-building: why, for example, I have spent weeks physically researching a real-life Central European city for stories that are set in a secondary world that is most definitely not Central Europe.

All I’m going to say about that right now is that world has already produced several “plumblossom” stories (the ones I put up for free at Fictionpress or in The Slash Pile anthologies, or wherever–they are all interconnected and some day will be woven into a single book about rivalries among sentient trees and the people who serve them, as well as magicians both good and evil, semi-self-aware teargas canisters and other objects, terrible history, threatening conditions, and tentatively bright futures): most of a huge fantasy novel involving both a pig spirit and artillery nests, that needs serious sustained attention as soon as I clear the decks with these other projects: and the outline of a novel set in the medieval-equivalent time of that world, involving land fraud, magic, alchemy, and personal loyalty. In other words, I have been playing in it quite vigorously. You can read some of the stories here. The ones in that world are “A Day of Porn” (which is not porn), “The Greenest Boy in Town,” “Stromnik,” and “Striking.” Another story, “Picnic Day Night,” is available at The Slash Pile’s second Halloween anthology “Psychopomp” here.

Are you still with me? Because here’s something you can buy! Less Than Three Press (who else?) has published Tan-ni Fan’s anthology, Missed Connections, and it is available right now from the publisher and here and at most online distributors (that’s really true, too! I somehow ended up searching for Outside and I saw it in online bookstores literally all over the world!). It’s a great big anthology full of big juicy stories about second chances. My story, “Rab+Rob 4ever,” is not science fiction like a lot of my work, but it is fiction about scientists(well, science students, anyway)! Rob has a terrible memory for things that happened in his childhood, so it’s no wonder that when he meets Jack in his last year in college, he doesn’t realize that it’s the same person as Rab, the boy who trailed around after him in their preschool years. Jack (Rab) doesn’t seem any too happy to make Rob’s acquaintance again…

Do you remember me talking about my beloved lesbian mechanics, Elisabeth and Melissa, and their adventures on Route Zero, the road that connects alternate universes? It’s pre-order time for their story at Less than Three. As of today, there’s a sale going on at Less than Three Press, and there’s only five days left till publcation day! Sorry for all the exclamation points, but I’m still new enough at this to be impressed with myself. Elisabeth and Melissa are the kind of mechanics you really want in your community. They have their own tow truck, and Melissa can find your part if it’s available anywhere in the state, and if it isn’t, Elisabeth can fabricate it from a similar part. Even if the car in question comes from nowhere in this world…Elisabeth has a past, though, and while the Grand Jury wants to talk to her, she wants to find out why this odd car’s radio is playing tunes from a future she used to dream about in her past. Contains a non-violent carjacking.

Well, that’s it for today! Watch this space for a giveaway of the A&A ebook!